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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26165764">Became</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inventivetic/pseuds/Inventivetic'>Inventivetic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Hat in Time (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Not Canon Compliant, POV The Florist, Short, Songfic, Suspense, headcannon, no beta we die like men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:55:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,510</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26165764</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inventivetic/pseuds/Inventivetic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Florist and The Prince escape into the woods into his secret cabin. The Florist wakes up alone.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Camping In The Cold</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The florist wakes up.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Just a writing exercise. Each chapter is one scene, so it's pretty short.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The bed that she lay in was unkempt: the blanket, crocheted, lay bunched beneath her. The birds did not sing, the sun did not shine, but the world did turn. So, she awoke. A subtle instance, a wrinkle of the face, two somethings rolling behind her eyelids. In a whole-body flinch, her eyes were blown wide before sagging. Her chest rose and fell. Mist slipped out of her, curled, disappeared.</p><p>She pushed the bunched blanket, crocheted, from underneath her. She stretched, an arm dangling over the side, but her hand met nothing. She flipped over, and at her sides, her elbows dug into the mattress as she peered down. Her pupils constricted as she scrambled to stand in the bundle beside her bed, turning in circles.</p><p>In a light pink nightgown, she pulled the door open. A metal twang followed her down the short hallway, past the ajar door, as she flew into the next room. Her brown eyes were on the mantle first. Her bare feet shuffled towards it haltingly, but soon she swallowed the distance. She stood on her toes, a muscle bulging from underneath, and then her heel came to rest on the ground again.</p><p>In her hands, metal. Heavy, and the size of her palm, like a weight. It gleamed in the minimal light, the room like a darkened stage. With her shoulders bunched around her ears, she held the crown to lips and her eyes fell closed. She sank to the ground.</p><p>She brushed the ground with her hand until she felt thin leather and hear the rustle of paper. She grabbed hold of off-white papers within and tossed them by the handful over her shoulder. Her fingertips brush the flint and steel. </p><p>
  <em>Shhk. Shkk. Shkk.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Fire bloomed in the fireplace, the bricks glowing, the shadows deepening. Her back straightened, and on her knees, her hands rested. Her shadow behind her stretched and pulsed and shrank with the flame, casting her in red and orange.</p><p>She rose, padded into the kitchen, and returned with a half loaf of bread and a cloth of cheese. Her eyes are dark, dark pits until they seem to catch flame too, but in a glint or two, like lightning. The crackle of bread as she snaps it in two is like a peal of thunder. Crumbs scatter over her lap, but she makes no move to brush them away. She snarls as she struggles to tear off a piece of bread with her teeth, but she brings a piece of cheese to her mouth after the hard chunk disappears. Repeat.</p><p>In fists, her hands tremble. She faces the window, flecks of bread flying from her like snowflakes. An enemy that she defeats with the back of her hand and brushes the curtain aside.</p><p>She recoiled, her hands rising to her chest as she pivots on her heel. Her back stings as she sinks down onto the floor. She trembles, and she flinches away on the second attempt, but she is able to peer outside.</p><p>White engulfs the trees, the ground, the leaves, the sky. It is colorless. And so is she.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. stalled out the flame</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I was trying to do some show-don't-tell sort of thing... but it ain't my style. Take this instead! Pardon the errors, I just figured I'd get the idea out of my system.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A low creak resounding in the room, a thin sliver of light cut into the veil of darkness, revealing the outlines of the floorboards. The light spread, but restricted to a stripe in the middle of the room: a tall oak stool, a desk and a dark purple banner with a yellow sun in the center.</p><p>The light seemed to be sucked back into the room, and blackness swept back to reclaim, like the twirl of a cape. The Florist held her bravery in her trembling hand, pushed herself of the door, and taking halting steps forward.</p><p>She jolted and yelped as she bumped into something and in not enough seconds to process, the light almost extinguished. She sighed with relief as she brought the courting candle to the leather cover.</p><p>She brushed her fingertips across the book until she hooked them under the edges of the book, her desperate curiosity was like a hunger she was itching to sedate. Her mind produced the the wide grin<em> he</em> always wore, his knee bobbing up and down, the matter in which he always swayed like a reed in the wind when standing. He thrived in the spotlight…so how did the hyperactive man that she’d known manage to disappear here so often?</p><p>Her thumb slipped between the pages and she flipped it open— </p><p>She saw the angular strokes—more like cuts with the way the ink bled through—had torn the paper in some places. </p><p>
  <em>HOWDOIREVERSETHISMYFAULTISHOULDHAVENEVRWHYTHEMTHEYWERECHILDREN— </em>
</p><p>She closed the journal. </p><p>She pushed the stool away from the desk with such force the candle toppled over, spilling the wax and the dark completely swallowed her.  With a yelp, she stumbled towards the door , and when she found the doorknob, she yanked it open.</p><p>***</p><p><br/>
</p><p>She didn’t eat for a while because the emptiness gnawing at her insides always brought her back from her thoughts…without a clock, time seem to drag itself by on its elbows. And when the pangs faded, she stood by the window, pressing her body against the wall and out of sight.</p><p>She pressed her hand into her chest, shivering. She peered around the window frame to look at her work. There was the outline of a cabin with a chimney, a bouquet of flowers and a  there was a snowflake where she’d drawn the condensation away. She shivered, sighed onto her hands. Looking down on them, they were blue A cloud of mist puffed in the air before her, and she knew it was time to start a fire.</p><p>She was at the bag of paper again, attempts to hide the contents from herself long discarded. She had looked enough already to know that the greetings in the letters never deviate, the address in the letters were always <em>Dear Prince</em></p><p>Except—</p><p>
  <em>‘Dear Vanessa…’</em>
</p><p>She froze with a thick stack of papers in her hand. She set them aside. She had brushed by the anomaly so fast, by the time she had lost it. She puts them aside and digs around for a glimpse of the paper she had just seen.</p><p>
  <em>Dear Prince,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Have you ever wondered what having children would be like? I can only imagine how much time we would spin together, cooing over their cradle, holding hands with a baby in tow… you’d dote over them, but at the end of the day, you would come back to me in bed. Until death do us part, right?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Your Princess,</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Vanessa</em>
</p><p>The Florist felt a smile twitch at the corner of her mouth.</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
  <em>Dear Prince,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>	I hope you enjoy Law School more than you enjoy it here. I’m sorry I can’t be more entertaining for you! Honestly, I understand why you left. It is too peaceful here, and there are not a lot of women other than me. I hope you’re enjoying your time.</em>
</p><p>And the next:</p><p>
  <em>Dear Prince,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I hope your school is doing well with you there. You are such a kind, caring man who only thinks about the good of his kingdom above else… no matter what it costs him. I think it is by mutual agreement that your absence is… temporary, but I wonder… what cost would you pay for the sake of your kingdom? You’ve already given your time, freedom and your youth. What about me? Would you give me up? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Your Princess,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Queen Vanessa</em>
</p><p>She read the letter over four times, unable to pinpoint exactly what made her want to burn these ones— Oh well.</p><p>It is when she tossed them into the earth that she discovered her real treasure:</p><p>
  <em>My Dearest Princess,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>	Every day that I spend a day with you is a day that I age forty—fifty years. I am so old, nearly dust. Let only your touch scatter me to the four winds, love. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Yours— </em>
</p><p>The Florists eyes brightened as she folded the paper into smaller and smaller squares until it could slip easily into her shirt. She stood up and ambled to the fire when she noticed the crown again.</p><p>She picked it up, a tiny sun that she juggled between her hands. It was a feature that she had been shocked by, but grew used to as it would be in her possession for… for as long as it needed to be.</p><p>She looked down at her hands, perking as she noticed a dark oval printed on the inner rim. Inches from her nose, it became clear that the shape was actually a pattern of twisting lines— a fingerprint.</p><p>She imagined <em>his</em> hands, soft and untainted, so delicate compared to her’s and she slid her own thumb over the print— </p><p>“Hhhk!” She yelped, the crown clinked as it struck the floor and rolled away  in a semi-circle before it returned to her. She sucked on her thumb and swiped it across the room with a backhand.</p><p>She sighed. She scoot closer to the lukewarm fire, now that it has taken, and it blazed. </p><p><br/>
</p>
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